~ Fast Food Nation ~

“Fast Food Nation” By Eric Schlosser is a pretty good read. not one to read if you love McDonalds/Burger King/KFC (and have no intention of giving them up)… but it certainly makes you think about food and where it comes from. [an excerpt from the book can be found here.]

The book is mostly about America, although it does touch on the globalisation of the Fast Food Industry. It goes into the history, talks about how these companies, multinationals treat their staff (badly), about teenagers who work for them and how they’re mistreated and used, about the meatpacking industry that lies behind the fast food companies, about how they treat their staff (equally badly) and about how the current agricultural and food departments, the guys in government whose job it is to oversee food and agriculture are really letting the country down. It talks about what’s really in the french fries, why they taste so good (answer: they used to have beef tallow in the vegetable oil, although they don’t do that in the UK now (at least, at the time of writing the book)), and the real cost of the burgers, about E Coli, about how profit is such an overiding force behind the meatpacking industry in the USA, that they’re forcing the workers to put the meat through faster and faster.. accidents happen – not just to the workers, but to the meat itself. it gets dropped, picked up, put back on the conveyor belt. it gets covered in faeces from where the cow is gutted. and as a result… E. Coli festers within the meat, an organism that can kill very very unpleasantly. And the government not only allowed the meat to be sold, they bought it for their children and fed it to them in school cafeterias.

Then it talks about Mad Cow disease, Food and Mouth disease. and throughout it all you’re thinking, “yes, but that’s america.. surely it can’t be allowed to happen here?” sure about that? think about BSE. Foot n mouth. bird flu. jamie oliver’s campaign to have school children fed proper food… the more you think and read about this the more you feel uncertain about the food that you buy, particularly the readymade stuff.

We already avoid ready meals/processed food where possible, and i make things from scratch, for financial reasons (as well as loving cooking). but i do know that even if i didn’t already do this… i would as a result of the information in this book.

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2 Responses to “~ Fast Food Nation ~”

We’ve successfully stayed away from fast food places for a long time now. Unless you count like Subway 🙂 Living with my darling folks, they have a habit of buying processed foods, but I’m slowly working them over to a better way of eating. Which reminded me, I wanted to ask you for your recipe for Beef Curry 🙂 We don’t eat a lot of beef either, but I bet I could make it with Turkey or Chicken! 🙂

hate to disappoint you, but according to the book, Subway ain’t whiter than white.. sure, it has healthier food (probably without the E Coli/BSE problems listed above) but the reason why its bad? they’re one of the worst for franchise abuse. It costs one of the lowest amounts for a franchise to buy a subway, (about $100,000 according to the book), but the firm takes one of the highest amounts of royalties – about 8%. Moreover, they seem to want to open a subway regardless of whether one is already close by. They sell their franchises through a network of agents, who are not directly paid by subway, they’re independent contractors, and they often sell the franchises to immigrants who don’t have a good command of english, and often don’t read the contracts before signing on the dotted line.

the net result is that the person buying the franchise has to work 60-70 hours a week to make it work, and own more than one subway store. (see page 100-101 in the book for details on this)

in addition this, they’re taking over school cafeterias (at the time of writing) in order to promote brand loyalty amongst kids. this is especially effective when you think that in a tossup between subway and say, mcdonalds, the administrators are going to plump for the “healthier” option. (see page 56 for details).

maybe that’ll help convince your folks!

recipe – yup, can do, and yes, you can make it with any meat you like (or even just veg). its a very easy recipe, but i use a bog standard curry powder that’s readily available over here, and i’m not sure it is over there. its also a chinesey type curry, rather than an indian type curry, although i do do indian type curries as well. its not at all straightforward i’m afraid! Anyway, see at the top of the page or on the right hand side, there are links to other pages? i’ll probably open a recipes or food section there and pop it in there, so keep your eyes peeled.